THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE. 185 



is that Man is a spiritual being and that the direction 

 of his long career is towards an ever larger, richer, 

 and more exalted life. On the final problem of Man's 

 being the voice of science is supposed to be dumb. 

 But this gradual perfecting of instruments, and, as 

 each arrives, the further revelation of what lies be- 

 hind in Nature, this gradual refining of the mind, this 

 increasing triumph over matter, this deeper knowl- 

 edge, this efflorescence of the soul, are facts which even 

 Science must reckon with. Perhaps, after all, Victor 

 Hugo is right : " I am the tadpole of an archangel." 



Before closing this outline two of the many omit- 

 ted points may be briefly referred to. In thinking of 

 Language as a " discovery," it is not necessary to as- 

 sume that that discovery involved the pre-existence 

 of very high mental powers. These were probably 

 developed pari passu with Speech, but did not neces- 

 sarily ante-date it to such a degree as to make the 

 preceding argument a petitio pHncipii. Obviously the 

 discovery of Language could not in the first instance 

 have been responsible for the Evolution of Mind, since 

 Man must already have had Mind enough to discover 

 it. But this does not necessarily imply any very high 

 grade of intellect — very high, that is to say, as com- 

 pared with other contemporary animals — for it is pos- 

 sible that a comparatively slight rise in intelligence 

 might have led to the initial step from which all the 

 others might follow in rapid succession. An illustra- 

 tion, suggested by a remark of Cope's, may help to 

 make plain how a very slight cause may initiate 

 changes of an almost radical order and on the most 

 gigantic scale. 



